Cracking Up

I’m showing new cleavage these days- right above the seat of my fashionably low cut, hip-hugging jeans. It’s a topic that heretofore has only been whispered about behind closed doors, but as one victim in a sea of millions suffering from plumber’s butt, I’ve decided to come out of the clothes closet.

It astounds me that virtually no one talks openly about the embarrassment, the doubt and the catcalls they’ve endured in their hip huggers. Since lowriders came into style a few years ago, I’ve seen more than I wanted to of thousands of female bums, bending over at the supermarket, sitting on park benches, even perusing the bottom racks in the children’s section at the library.

Just the other day, my husband casually said, “You know, you’ve been showing your butt crack a lot. I’m starting to get defensive.”

“What are you talking about?” I sputtered, standing up from putting dishes in the dishwasher. “When? Where?”

“On the airplane last week,” he replied, tearing his eyes from my exposed behind. “Every time you leaned over in your seat.”

“Well, it got us an empty extra seat on a supposedly full flight, didn’t it?” I retorted. (To be honest, it probably had more to do with the squealing Baby I seated fetchingly on that extra seat, but that’s beside the point).

The problem with visible butt cleavage is that, unlike when your boob pops out of your bustier and you note the horrified looks on the faces of, say, the Super Bowl audience, when your ass is exposed, the witnesses inevitably are behind you (pardon the pun). So you might end up spending hours mooning friends, relatives and strangers before someone lets you know you’ve made Glamour’s fashion victims page.

Although I’m not about to get waisted when it comes to jeans, I’ve become entirely too self conscious about my hip huggers. For one thing, you’ll find me tugging them up about every five seconds. And sitting down in them now involves a time consuming five-step process.

1) Tug up jeans.
2) Sit down, squeezing butt cheeks to keep jeans from moving.
3) Reach around to feel for exposed butt crack.
4) Tug shirt down over exposed butt crack.
5) Place purse/shopping bags behind back to cover shirt riding up over exposed butt crack.

Heaven forbid I have to pick something up off the ground in my lowriders. After looking around to make sure no one is directly in the sightline of my ass, I do what could best be described as a freeform limbo to avoid bending over and risking an arrest for public indecency. More than once, good samaritans have actually grabbed my arm and asked if I was okay.

So who is responsible for this mess? I imagine secret meetings of the world’s fashion designers (mostly men of course), snickering over their croissants and coffee as they come up with the latest ways to Embarrass Womankind. Over the years, they’ve zinged us with knickers, micro minis, corsets and gaucho pants. I can just picture their glee as the hip hugger-wearing mannequin was unveiled before them.

“I love how ze woman’s pooch will hang out over ze front,” beams one.

“And ‘er love ‘andles will squeeze out the sides!” shouts another.

“She’ll have to use her husband’s belts for those jeans!” chuckles a third. “He won’t like that, no sir.”

“Gentlemen,” announces the puffed-up presenter. “The best is yet to come.”

As he spins the dummy around for a rear view, the room erupts in applause.

I’ve come up with something of a solution, at least in the privacy of my own home. After my husband chastized me for my chronic crack attack, I went to fold clothes in the laundry room. As I heard him coming down the hall, I pulled my jeans waydown and let it all hang out while I fished clothes out of the dryer. When Hubs walked by, I heard his footsteps stop short, a moment of stunned silence, and the sound of uproarious laughter.

Image via Todd Huffman/Flickr